Activist Jack Monroe clashed with a feminist academic during a fiery TV debate on trans issues on Thursday, calling the belief that trans women aren't women "bang out of order".

Monroe sat alongside Julia Long, a lecturer in sociology and long-time feminist, on Channel 4 News, after the publication of the first report by the Women and Equalities Committee in Parliament.

The committee's transgender equality inquiry sparked the fury of Dr Long, who believes trans issues stray away from its prescribed purpose. View the full clip of the debate, above.

Jack Monroe appeared alongside Julia Long in Thursday night's debate

In the heated exchange, Dr Long hit out at the committee's findings that people should be free to self-identify and select their own gender, claiming that this would place those victimised by male partners in jeopardy.

Long said: "I'd like to begin by saying I think it's really ironic that the first act by this committee that calls itself the women and equalities committee, the first report that they publish is something that actually antithetical to women's rights."

"We call all pull cases out where we can say this has happened and that has happened but those cases are very, very rare, and to try and deny services to women on the basis that those women are trans women is abhorrent,” Monroe said.

"I was raped by a cis (to be defined by the gender assigned at birth) man and again by a lesbian woman... I don't use either of those experiences to try and deny cis straight men or gay women access to rape crisis services."

Long replied: "The kind of language that Jack is using there is really illustrative of the heart of this problem where even terms like male and female are becoming meaningless."

"But who are you to decide who is a man and who is a woman?” Monroe asked in reply.

Monroe launched the blistering attack

"By using the term men, I imagine that you're talking about trans women and you're classing trans women as men which is bang out of order for a start.

"Trans women are women and it is not for you to say that trans women are men and it's not for you to say that being transgender is some kind of frivolous lifestyle choice where someone is going to decide 'oh you know I'm going to decide to identify as a woman so I have access to a rape crisis centre'.

"If men want to go out and assault women they do, rapists are rapists. Trans people are not rapists by default."

Monroe took to Twitter to hit out at Long and Channel 4 News following the interview, claiming the academic may receive a payment for her appearance, whilst accusing the producers of not sticking to the debate brief.

I wouldn't have accepted the Channel 4
'debate' if I'd known I'd be reduced to defending myself as 'not automatically a rapist coz trans'.